Secrecy of baseball's drug program is its weakness

Gwen Knapp

Published 4:00 am, Friday, February 24, 2012

Photo: Christian Petersen, Getty

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ST LOUIS, MO - FILE: Ryan Braun #8 of the Milwaukee Brewers smiles during Game Four of the National League Championship Series against the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium on October 13, 2011 in St Louis, Missouri. Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers was named the National League Most Valuable Player on November 22, 2011. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images) less

ST LOUIS, MO - FILE: Ryan Braun #8 of the Milwaukee Brewers smiles during Game Four of the National League Championship Series against the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium on October 13, 2011 in St Louis, ... more

Photo: Christian Petersen, Getty

Secrecy of baseball's drug program is its weakness

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People will always wonder. Ryan Braun is stuck with perpetual doubts instead of a 50-game suspension.

If he were an Olympic athlete, the arbitration panel that ruled in his favor Thursday would have been required to explain its findings. It would have laid out the reasons for negating his positive drug test and posted the results of its hearing on a website.

Many news outlets reported that Braun won his appeal because his urine sample was not sent to the lab on the same day, as required. Braun apparently became the first major-leaguer to file a successful grievance since MLB started penalizing performance-enhancing drug use in 2004.

We don't know if either piece of information is true. MLB and the players union committed to a veiled grievance process, on the theory that confidentiality protects the players. For all we know, the testing protocol has failed repeatedly, and arbitrators have overturned dozens of suspensions.

With Olympic-style transparency, we'd know whether a grievance had ever revealed that a courier took a sample home and stuck it in the fridge between half-eaten cans of dog food and leftover kung pao chicken. There would be a public archive of cases, like the one assembled by the international Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Braun can always lay out his defense for fans. He might have a great case to present. But without an arbitrator's formal ruling as support, he has a credibility problem. Meanwhile, baseball has no obligation to explain why its testing failed. In fact, the confidentiality clause effectively shelters MLB from scrutiny on the subject, prohibiting it from commenting on information revealed in the grievance process.

A chorus of athletes, led most vocally by Packers quarterback (and Braun buddy) Aaron Rodgers, said the media and MLB had smeared the Brewers' outfielder. ESPN reported in December that Braun had tested positive for artificial testosterone and was appealing a suspension.

Braun's supporters believe that if the network's sources hadn't breached his confidentiality, his reputation would never have been harmed. No one would have heard about the positive test. Braun could have collected his National League MVP award without clouds hanging over him. The arbitration would have happened quietly, without an announcement from MLB and the union, which reached an agreement to reveal the results only because of the ESPN story.

Everything would have just gone away. None of Braun's teammates or opponents would have heard a thing. He wouldn't have confided in a soul, who accidentally told another person, who told someone else, who eventually told someone who knew someone in baseball. His lawyer's secretary or the arbitrator's assistant wouldn't have known and shared the secret over a few beers.

The story would never have been whispered in clubhouses. It would never have reached previously suspended players and infuriated them. No one would have heard the truth and wondered exactly how the golden boy from Milwaukee, the hometown of Commissioner Bud Selig, was cleared after Manny Ramirez and Rafael Palmeiro had been thoroughly busted.

That's not how the real world works. These things never stay buried. It's only a question of how long they fester.

Barry Bonds knew what Mark McGwire was doing, and he had every right to hate the willful ignorance that surrounded the 1998 home-run chase. How many of today's players, some of whom heartily supported growth-hormone testing in the new collective-bargaining agreement, would have felt the same corrosive distrust if Braun's test had stayed undercover?

In theory, the successful appeal cleared Braun's name. In reality, fans are free to think that he got off on a technicality, that he really had the excess hormone in his system and a misguided messenger saved his skin.

Transparency wouldn't appease every fan, but proper documentation might help reasonable people mitigate their doubts. A ruling could describe how a delayed transfer, while it might seem like a technicality, can undermine the validity of the process.

Years of drug stories and absurd excuses create a high level of skepticism. But the archives of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the ultimate Olympic-level judge, contain stories of athletes who, even to the most cynical eye, appear to have been badly wronged.

The open records make the system better, not more damaging, for athletes. They allow a cleared competitor to answer doubts with a line once cherished in baseball: "You could look it up."

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